Leto II & Siona:

Duncan Idaho, one of my favorite characters:

Also, check this site out if you were also puzzled by the end of original series; Dune: Marty and Daniel

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I remembered that conversation when I was watching the TED talk The 6 killer apps of prosperity by Niall Ferguson. It is not an in depth analysis of course, but underlines some of the obvious facts and also includes some surprises.

This talk also touches how Ottoman Empire lost its power by giving in to bigotry. And the funniest thing is, according to the speaker, İbrahim Müteferrika was the one who realized the advantages of western empires. The very own İbrahim Müteferrika of Ottoman Empire, who brought the printing technology.

Oh, and it ends with a surprise. If you are really observant or you have watched it till the end, you will see that the trend is reversing.

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1. Sign of a Stupid Programmer

Unlike programmers who can’t program, stupid programmers can and do program. That is the problem.

joined = '%s%s%s%s%s%s' % (
    some_list[0],
    some_list[1],
    some_list[2],
    some_list[3],
    some_list[4],
    some_list[5],
    some_list[6])

You just wish they were unable to program. Every single time you encounter their code you question yourself. You ask if this is programming, what the f#ck is it I have been doing all this time?

def __unicode__(self):
    return '%s' % self.some_unicode_attribute

I have been reading on stupidity lately. It all started with Onur tweeting this article. Then I have found the following definition of stupidity:

A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

They’re both good reads. I just wish I was introduced to these concepts earlier. I felt stupid for my ignorance on stupidity.

def some_func(**kwargs):
    param1 = kwargs.get('param1', 'param1_default')
    param2 = kwargs.get('param2', 'param2_default')
    param3 = kwargs.get('param3', 'param3_default')
    param4 = kwargs.get('param4', 'param4_default')
    param5 = kwargs.get('param5', 'param5_default')
    param6 = kwargs.get('param6', 'param6_default')

Watch out for the stupid programmer. He is destructive.

Related posts:

1. Was it the imperialism that made the west rich?

I have learned to recognize this behaviour and walk away. There are better ways to waste your time than trying to convince someone who doesn’t want to help himself, to do something fruitful. This education cost me a lot of time. But I think I have finally learned.

While I was reading Ray Dalio’s Principles, I found these two paragraphs below. They simply explain the whole issue:

Unlike any other species, man is capable of reflecting on himself and the things around him to learn and adapt in order to improve. He has this capability because, in the evolution of species man’s brain developed a part that no other species has—the prefrontal cortex. It is the part of the human brain that gives us the ability to reflect and conduct other cognitive thinking. Because of this, people who can objectively reflect on themselves and others —most importantly on their weaknesses are—can figure out how to get around these weaknesses, can evolve fastest and come closer to realizing their potentials than those who can’t.

However, typically defensive, emotional reactions—i.e., ego barriers—stand way of this progress. These reactions take place in the part of the brain called the amygdala. As a result of them, most people don’t like reflecting on their weaknesses even though recognizing them is an essential step toward preventing them from causing them problems. Most people especially dislike others exploring their weaknesses because it makes them feel attacked, which produces fight or flight reactions; however, having others help one find one’s weaknesses is essential because it’s very difficult to identify one’s own. Most people don’t like helping others explore their weaknesses, even though they are willing to talk about behind their backs, For these reasons most people don’t do a good job of understanding themselves and adapting in order to get what they want most out of life. In my opinion, that is the biggest single problem of mankind because it, more than anything else, impedes people’s abilities to address all other problems and it is probably the greatest source of pain for most people.

If we can successfully classify people into these two groups, I think we can do more meaningful things. Of course, it’s OK to become friends with the people who fall into the second category. As long as you don’t forget about their limitations and pick suitable activities.

Now, the second group of people are quite a different story. They would not only accept your help for their personal development, they would welcome it. But, why should we care? It’s their personal development, their problem. Shouldn’t we be worried about our own personal development? These people would have a momentum in their life that will affect your own pace. Moreover they will probably try to engage you and try to help you overcome your weaknesses. You should be worried about your own growth primarily. This is why surrounding yourself with these people is a great idea.

I have been very fortunate to meet people who are not afraid to review and renew themselves. I have managed to understand myself and others better, thanks to their mentoring. You don’t need to wait for a mentor to appear out of nowhere² and give you all the answers and keys though. You can start with Seth Godin’s Quieting the Lizard Brain talk (below) and hopefully begin learning and changing things. After all noone can adapt for you, you will eventually need to exert some effort. Great effort.

1: Also I have been reading about game design but it is not really related to this post.

2: I consider myself really, really lucky, what kind of person would I be if those fantastic people hadn’t appear out of nowhere. I don’t think I would have ever dared to challenge myself.

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Programming is human activity, but this image still has nothing to do with it.

Most of the readers of this blog are professional programmers. I am sure for many of you starting was quite easy and natural. But for a lot of people it is an extremely difficult obstacle. I know people, more than 50 people, who studied CS or CE in university but has never written any real code. They get anxious when the possibility presents itself.

The problem with the start is usually the false expectations about programming. There are certain myths about heroic programmers writing incredible programs in impossible conditions with little or no effort. This is of course bullshit. But I have witnessed again and again people setting their expectations about the experience of writing code by these absurd standards. The actual experience inevitably fails to deliver these expectations and the person gives up. This doesn’t have be so. Programming is supposed to be fun.

When we open a book and start reading, the words we see are unlikely the author’s original words. The original, raw content get edited before printing. It is an iterative process. I don’t want to get into the details about publishing¹ but beginners should study this process carefully. Because the process of programming is same, sans the magic.

So the act of programming is also an act of debating. You debate with your tests using your code. When all tests pass, the debate is over. When you are making design decisions, no matter how small they are, there is a debate going on between the requirements, the resources and your professional judgement. Therefore it would be unreasonable to expect programming to be a smooth, frictionless process. If you want to start you should be prepared for it.

I would like to share a few pointers that I hope will make the start more predictable if not easier:

1. Try to find a real problem to work on. Forget about educational/theoretical problems. Solve a real, practical problem. There is one extremely important thing to remember here; the scope of the project must be as small as possible. A series of 2-day projects are much better than a 2 week project.
2. Start by documenting the usage of the code. Write an example script that imports your hypotetical code and uses its functionality. In other words; design top-down, program bottom-up.
3. Then flesh out the structure. Create files, classes, functions, comments. Writing code is good for warming-up to write some code.
4. Divide and conquer. Implement incrementally, accomplish one thing at a time. If a functionality is giving you hard time, try to write something that produces some results but not exactly what you expect. Then continue iterating until you get it right. Don’t wait for the programming muse to come and light the way. Sometimes you need to invent all the wrong implementations before figuring out the correct one.
5. Never hesitate to ask for help. Programming is debating, why not introduce your peers and mentors into the process. If you are asking for help make sure you have a concrete question. Input, expected output and your current code is usually enough. Even when you don’t have a problem or question, share your work with others and try to get as much feedback as possible.
6. Do your research. There is no getting around the reading. I would be lying to you if I said otherwise. If you want to win the debate you need to be well prepared. It may be a little overwhelming in the beginning. But as you build up your knowledge (and experience) you will enjoy reading more.

I hope these pointers are helpful. But I think the most important thing to remember is programming is not a mechanical process but it is very human, I call it a debate, some call it art.

1: Nor am I an expert on the subject.

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Singapore is a very expat friendly country. After 10+ years of living in İstanbul, it is almost effortless to survive here. The biggest difficulty I have faced is the cultural difference. I have grown up to believe that I was the eastern guy. Only after living here for a while, I realized that I was western. Without a doubt.

Communication is more indirect and subtle here. Our way of to-the-point talking usually goes overboard, fails to convey your message and you end up where you have started. This was quite frustrating for me at the beginning. I still haven’t mastered the art. But I have come to realize that I am just a guest here, a stranger and therefore I am the one who should learn and to adopt.

I have quoted a dialogue from Outliers below to give you a better idea of what I am writing about:

Kwacang (boss): It's cold and I'm kind of hungry.
(meaning: Why don't you buy a drink or something to eat?)

Mr. Kim (employee): How about having a glass of liquor?
(meaning: I will buy liquor for you)

Kwacang (boss): It's okay. Don't bother.
(meaning: I will accept your offer if you repeat it)

Mr. Kim (employee): You must be hungry. How about going out?
(meaning: I insist upon treating you)

Kwacang (boss): Shall I do so?
(meaning: I accept)

Also there are certain things that will probably catch you off-guard if you are unfamiliar with asian culture. In western world, no sometimes means yes. Here, yes sometimes means no. In fact, for me, yes has just been a polite no more often than not. Possibly because I am such an Ang mo.

Something interesting happened just this morning. When I was riding the elevator the gentleman told me it is floor 3, when it stopped the the third floor. This is kind of like a big gesture here, he saved me from the embarrasment. Because as it usually happens you dash out of the elevator and if it’s not the ground floor you make a fool of yourself. I think this elegance is the defining characteristic of the eastern culture.

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Well, MovieReshape does the same thing on real-life footage. You can morph flesh-and-bone actors in-motion. Watch the video below and pay close attention to how it fits a mesh on the model.

Here is the paper from Max Planck Institute. And if you want to play with 3D morphing I suggest you try Make Human (open source).

Source: gizmodo.com

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When I decided to give this software a fair chance to succeed on its very own domain the only question in my head was; will it pass the test of users? It doesn’t really matter what you have intended the users do with your application. What matters, first, is what they think they’d like to do with it and then whether or not they actually use it.

So I tried and I failed. Two main reasons of this failure are; technical deficiencies and the special way of interaction coffee reading is. Technical deficiencies is the easy one. I couldn’t devote enough time for telvee, especially lately. As a result it doesn’t even have basic stuff like e-mail changing or account deletion. This is 100% my fault. The second reason however is more complicated and there was not much I could do about it. Except one thing I will tell you at the end of this post.

Telvee didn’t pass the user’s test mainly because coffee reading is somewhat private. It’s more of a 1-to-1 communication, while all social applications¹ are designed for 1-to-many communication. This was disastrous not only because of the lack of viral growth but also because of the reluctance of users to interact with other users.

An example image of coffee remains telvee generates

I would like to thank everybody who participated and I hope you had some fun playing with it. Telvee domain will soon redirect to this post and I will probably not renew it next time.

I won’t be starting a new experiment soon. I will spend most of my time on my work. Hopefully I will be spending a little more time on free software projects. By the way I would like to note that Telvee has spawned a couple of Django apps: django-inviting & django-simple-friends.

Oh, and the thing I could do better about user experience was to be more agile. I should have either fixed the problem quickly or failed fast. I have no regrets though. This was a unique experience and I have learned a lot.

1: Yes, even the e-mail system and dating sites are designed for 1-to-many communication primarily in mind.

Related posts:

1. My PyCon APAC 2011 Presentation: Optimizing Media Performance with django_compressor
2. Working with files in Django – Part 1
3. Working with files in Django – Part 2

By community support, I mean free software support provided by the user community. Every successful project has some form of communication; mailing lists, forums, IRC, wikis, etc. And the preferred language is almost always English. Simply because you can reach more people. People who can use your code. Who can test it, file bugs, send patches, etc. It is the logical thing to do. But in the spirit of freedom, I think nobody should be forced to use a certain (natural or programming) language for something they have created.

Real Communities

I think having local communities is a great idea. I don’t know, because we don’t have any in Türkiye². So I am just guessing they should be cultivating and fun at the same time. We do have many local pseudo-communities though. There is some activity, people come and go, some of them stay much longer than the others. But they never progress towards a community. I think this is because they make the fundamental mistake of localizing community support. They translate documentation intended for highly technical people and create new channels that no advanced user will bother to participate. In short, they attempt to sidestep the language barrier.

If want to be a programmer you need to know English. It is not optional. It is not a requirement of being a good programmer. You are at most an excellent script kiddie without proper English skills. Obviously, knowing perfect English doesn’t make you a great programmer instantly. It will increase the resources you can access dramatically, though. And most importantly it will give you the chance to know more about what you don’t know. Stay in your little world to play with your mates who know just as little as you do and you will never improve.

A Foolish Endeavour

Some people, who spend time with these pseudo-communities, know English well enough. They are probably acting with good intentions when they provide support in their native language. But they are actually wasting their time. Having been solved one specific problem doesn’t make the other person a better programmer. On the contrary they are giving local users another reason to avoid solving the real issue. The function of a community should be supporting each member’s continuous improvement. That doesn’t necessarily mean solving their technical problems for them³.

What is wrong with asking questions in a native language if on a local channel or face to face with local people? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It would be silly to speak another language there. But if you really want to improve, you can tap into a greater source of information. It is your choice. Pseudo-communities will only take you so far. Because they are only generating more newbies, and not supporting newbies become experienced users. Do they produce anything but empty talk?

Why should a local community produce anything? What should the product be? I will probably write another post about this soon. But feel free to post your ideas and critics in the comments.

1: Obviously, it only makes sense if your native language is not English.

2: I would very much like to be proven wrong on this one. If you know any, please write a comment and don’t forget to include a website and date of the last meeting.

3: Also note that there is a difference between helping someone solve a problem and solving the problem. Spoonfeeding does more harm than good.

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Free Software & Open Source Days of İstanbul Bilgi University and Linux & Free Software Festival of Linux Users Association are united under the name Free Software & Linux Days this year. If you have attended before, you will probably make no other plans for April 2-3.

If you have never been to this event, registration is free and can be done at the front desk. If you are remotely interested in free software or hackerdom you will want to be there. …and, of course, you are welcome.

I will be giving a Django presentation on Friday. Please come and say hello if you happen to be attending.

UPDATE: You can find the slides from presentation here. Slideshare’s importer failed to import the file I’ve uploaded properly. So please download and view the slides with Acrobat Reader.

Related posts:

1. I Am Discontinuing Telvee
2. My PyCon APAC 2011 Presentation: Optimizing Media Performance with django_compressor
3. Working with files in Django – Part 1